SMC Spring Concerts • May 17 & 20, 2012
Spring Concert – The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace
By Karl Jenkins
Thursday, May 17, 2012 • 7pm 
Sunday, May 20, 2012 • 2pm
An emotionally stirring concert with choir and orchestra featuring a new work (2001) of sacred texts that will leave you speechless…a breathtaking story about the human condition.
The Armed Man is a Mass by Welsh Composer Karl Jenkins. The piece was commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum for the Millennnium celebrations, and to mark the museum’s move from London to Leeds. It is considered an anti-war piece and is based on the Catholic Mass, which Jenkins combines with other sources, principally the fifteenth century folk song L’homme armé in the first and last movements.
“When I started composing The Armed Man, The tragedy of Kosovo unfolded. I was thus reminded daily of the horror of such conflict and so I dedicate this work to the victims of Kosovo.” Karl Jenkins
Sponsored by Kathy Chastain & Gary Shannon
The Sierra Master Chorale presents this concert, the premiere of the work in our area, as a major event to bridge the many perspectives of war held by those in our community. We wish to honor the service and sacrifice of those who have been warriors, and also the prayers of those who believe war is not an answer. Above all, we wish to pay homage to the yearning of every human heart for peace in our time.
The Armed Man charts the growing menace of a descent into war, interspersed with moments of reflection; shows the horrors that war brings; and ends with the hope for peace in a new millennium, when “sorrow, pain and death can be overcome.” It begins with a representation of marching feet, overlaid later by the shrill tones of a piccolo impersonating the flutes of a military band with the 15th-century French words of “The Armed Man.”
After the reflective pause of the Call to Prayer and the Kyrie, “Save Us From Bloody Men” appeals for God’s help against our enemies in words from the Book of Psalms. The Sanctus has a military, menacing air, followed by Kipling’s “Hymn Before Action”. “Charge!” draws on words from John Dryden andJonathan Swift, beginning with martial trumpets and song, but ending in the antagonized screams of the dying.
This is followed by the eerie silence of the battlefield after action, broken by a lone trumpet playing the Last Post. “Angry Flames” describes the appalling scenes after the bombing of Hiroshima, and “Torches” parallels this with an excerpt from the Mahabharata, describing the terror and suffering of animals dying in fire. Agnus Dei is followed by “Now the Guns have Stopped”, written as part of a Royal Armouries display on the guilt felt by some returning survivors of World War I.
After the Benedictus, “Better is Peace” ends the mass on a note of hope, drawing on the hard-won understanding of Lancelot and Guinevere that peace is better than war, and on the text from Revelation: “God shall wipe away all tears”
